


Pity the Man

by Franzbibliothek



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Charles Xavier isn't doing so hot, Friends With Benefits, Genosha, M/M, Masturbation, Sort Of, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-06-04
Packaged: 2020-04-07 20:10:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19092265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Franzbibliothek/pseuds/Franzbibliothek
Summary: “I'm just recognizing that I think she needs something that I can't give her, there's no shame in that.""I suppose"—Erik lifted a hand to Charles's cheek—"it helps that everyone always come back to you eventually."Charles tried not to memorize the feel of every callous. "Not everyone," Charles said, softly.After the events of Apocalypse, Charles and Erik are still working out what they are to each other.





	Pity the Man

Two are better than one,  
because they have a good return for their work:  
If one falls down,  
his friend can help him up.  
But pity the man who falls  
and has no one to help him up!  
Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.  
But how can one keep warm alone?

Ecclesiastes 4:9-11

When Charles had been a young child and a budding scientist, he had stolen a pumpkin from the garden and taken it back to his room. For the next few weeks he eagerly sat before it, clutching a leather-bound journal, recording every minute detail of the decay process as it slowly blackened and bloated before finally collapsing in on itself in a grotesque parody of over-ripeness. To a little boy nothing could have been more fascinating. Now decades later, Charles couldn't help but think of that pumpkin as his head felt close to bursting from a ferocious headache.

The past week had been a whirligig of headaches followed by nausea followed by light sensitivity followed by more headaches. He couldn't even ask Hank for the good painkillers because Hank would only fuss and recommend bed-rest when there honestly wasn't any time.

Tomorrow, he had already promised Jean they would run a practice session with Cerebro and the day after that he was off on a two week campaign against new legislation trying to incentivize voluntary registration in the mutant community. Charles was scheduled to open a rock concert of all things; Raven had had a field day when she had learned.

And when Erik had appeared at his window tonight, carrying a briefcase filled with data on Genosha's agricultural output for the past three months, Charles had poured himself a stiff drink and let him in without a thought.

“Hm, plantain and banana growth exceeded our best predictions. That’s very good,” Charles said. He hoped the way he was leaning his head heavily against his hand wasn’t too obvious.

“Are you surprised?” Erik asked. He sat in a chair, floated over from the other side of Charles’s bedroom and placed next to Charles's desk as they bent over the truly tremendous amount of documentation he had brought.

There was nothing in Erik's clothing, a plain button-down shirt and slacks, that betrayed him as a statesman. He had even come in jeans once, and Charles doesn’t think he will ever quite recover from it. There had been a breakdown in the irrigation system that day which Erik had seen to personally, but still he had refused to cancel their meeting.

That was also the time he had used Charles’s shower and spent the next few hours lounging about in a bathrobe, half dozing on the couch as Charles went over Genosha’s finances. Charles, for his part, couldn’t say that it had been a highly productive meeting on his end either. He had been occasionally distracted by how Erik’s hair was beginning to grey and left Charles to imagine what he would look like when it went completely white, probably unfairly beautiful. Erik never wore the helmet to these meetings. Charles never read his thoughts.

Charles shook his head (gently) with a grin. “I’ve learned long ago to never underestimate you. Though, I must say, the creation of a country is no small undertaking, even for Magneto… and your lack of reliable access to most manufactured goods is going to hurt your sustainability in the long run if it's not properly addressed.”

Erik pressed his lips together. Charles wasn’t telling him anything he was not already intimately aware of. "I can put more resources toward our scavenge team.”

"Or you could set up trade agreements like other countries," Charles said.

Erik snorted. "Maybe when the whole of Genosha isn't labeled a terrorist organization and a cult."

"There are ways to get around that, you know this. Money talks."

"Oh, is that why you never shut up?" Erik asked in mock surprise.

Charles grinned. This was why when Erik had appeared outside his window a few weeks after Apocalypse, carrying a briefcase filled with maps and bulk orders for raw materials, Charles had let him in without question and then every time after. No one else could be quite as mean to him the way Erik was. "Right, I suppose my fortune has been primarily a burden to you. After all, what is enough money to finance a small country between old friends?" Charles asked, taking a gulp from his glass of scotch which was doing absolutely nothing to take the edge off from the pounding in his head.

“Well, we each have our unique advantages,” Erik said, sending a few stray binder clips circling lazy in the air.

"Yes, and if things continue as they have, someday the rest of the world will see it."

The binder clips fell to the table with a discordant plastic clank. "I don't see what the rest of the world has to do with it," Erik snapped, the atmosphere of congeniality bursting like a soap bubble, too beautiful to last. Charles suppressed a sigh.

"I only meant that if the rest of the world could see how valuable mutants can be in all different kinds of fields—"

"Then they would round them up and press gang them into servitude instead of turning a blind eye to them fleeing as they do now. You can't seriously be still preaching assimilation, Charles? The humans love the X-Men, but what will they do when they realize you and your children are made of flesh and blood and are not benevolent angels sent to solve all their problems that they're too weak to take on themselves?" Erik asked, leaning forward.

"I think I'm supposed to say: they'll hunt us down one by one and they'll dash our infants against the rocks as our women wail and gnash their teeth. Yes, I think I've heard this before and while I love nothing more than listening to you, my friend, perhaps we can skip this part of the ritual tonight?" Charles retorted, rubbing at his temple, his headache spiking in response to Erik's unshielded agitation.

Erik could read from the phone book and Charles wouldn't really mind, but rehashing old arguments that they both knew would change neither of their minds felt beyond him tonight. A reminder of those barriers between them. They weren't just two old friends bickering amicably, but generals at a parley which might be revoked at any time.

Erik frowned (and Charles is a connoisseur of Erik's frowns) less at what Charles said and more at the hand pressed to the side of his head.

"I have a student who is thinking of running away to Genosha," Charles said, forcing his hand back down to his side.

"What? One of your little soldiers doesn't want to be an X-Men when they grow up? How disappointing for you." Erik settled back, his tone controlled now, betraying a self-awareness he had never had as a young man. Perhaps years of community coordination meetings had finally domesticated Magneto in ways Charles never could.

“She should stay until graduation, but Jenny has a good head on her shoulders and a talent for healing that goes beyond her limited cellular manipulation abilities. I had hoped she’d want to pursue a medical degree—”

“Instead of wasting her potential wading in the mud with her fellow mutants?” Erik asked archly.

“I was more thinking about the lack of higher educational opportunity that Genosha affords. Which is another problem you are really going to have to address sooner rather than later. You can hardly have your great society of mutants if you don’t have mutant doctors, and mutant lawyers, and mutant architects—”

“And mutant teachers, of course. If only there was someone I knew who had experience opening schools,” Erik said in complete nonchalance.

“If you haven’t noticed I’m running a school here and I’m a liaison to the mutant affairs office and if the press were to get so much as a hint of me stepping one foot in Genosha, all the credibility that I’ve been building for decades would be gone!” Charles sputtered.

Erik raised his eyebrows slightly. “And since when have gossiping journalists stopped Charles Xavier from doing what he wanted?”

Charles glanced at the floor, just to steady the dizziness in his head, he told himself. “What could I possible want in Genosha besides sunburn, bug bites, and wheelchair inaccessibility?” Charles muttered.

Erik was so quiet, that if Charles couldn’t sense his mind (always) glimmering at the edges of his consciousness, he might have worried that Erik had left.

"So, Jenny wants to leave you, and you're just giving up on her?" Erik said, standing up from his chair.

"When have you known me to give up on anything, Erik?” Charles said, glaring upward to meet Erik’s eyes. “I'm just recognizing that I think she needs something that I can't give her, there's no shame in that."

"I suppose"—Erik lifted a hand to Charles's cheek—"it helps that everyone always come back to you eventually."

Charles tried not to memorize the feel of every callous. "Not everyone," Charles said, softly.

Erik's thumb pressed against Charles's bottom lip. "Well, if you aren't interested in fighting tonight, I suppose we should move onto other parts of our ritual." He leaned forward and pressed his mouth hotly against Charles’s neck. Charles felt his headache recede to a more bearable level, pushed out by the spike of arousal that shot through his body.

Decades ago Charles would have embraced Erik, would have met that hot mouth with his, would have reached out with his mind and entwined them until where one of them ended and where the other began was impossible to tell. Decades ago they had been more than just friends with complementary political aims.

“You should get on the bed,” Charles said as though it was a suggestion. It was not.

Erik drew his head back and there was something there, something sharp in his mind underneath the surface of arousal and annoyance, that Charles refused to touch. His own thoughts were preoccupied with the disaster that would take place if Erik truly touched him, undressed him, tore him open and Charles heard: _this isn't like I remember…_

Erik sprawled onto the bed, keeping his shoes on because he knew it annoyed Charles. He didn't ask for suggestions or even much look at Charles (though Charles can't look away from him) as he unbuttoned his shirt and pushed down his trousers.

The skin revealed was tan and healthy, from regular hours and regular meals. He was thicker in the middle than he had been as a younger man, no doubt partly the result of those endless meetings he loved to complain about. Charles rather liked it, thought it suited him, as if he had grown into something sturdier, impossible to break. Erik's hand reached past the waistband of his underwear and gripped his cock without the least bit of self consciousness. His hair was just a little too long and curled the slightest bit at the nape of his neck. Apparently there were no mutant barbers either on Genosha.

Charles didn't know who or what Erik thought of while he did this, his hips canting upward while he makes those sounds he still tried so hard to suppress, but could never entirely manage to. Charles has lived long enough to know that when every option is intolerable, it's better to just not play the game.

So he kept his distance physically and mentally, only just keeping a light mental thumb on the pulse of Erik's desire as it built and built, falling for a moment when he shifted to get a better grip on himself or retrieved more lubrication from the bedside table before stroking himself, climbing once again.

He turned his head slightly towards Charles, just for a moment, before shutting his eyes and reaching his peak. Semen spilled onto his hand, some of it smearing on the bed sheets.

It was inevitable that one of these nights Erik was going to tell him no. That he would say that he had found some nice mutant supremacist to go home to, who could give him all the things that Charles couldn't. That one day he'd realize that nothing could ever grow with Charles, that he was a barren field, a whitewashed tomb.

Charles headache came back with a vengeance and he couldn't hide the flinch as the pain blacked out his vision for a moment. There wasn't a chance of hiding it from Erik. As Charles's vision cleared Erik was already sitting up and staring at Charles with an intent and serious expression so totally at odds with his softening cock still hanging out of his unfastened trousers that Charles would have laughed if his head hadn't felt so tender and ready to burst.

"You could have told me you weren't feeling well," Erik said.

"And miss arguing with you over plantains and crop rotation? Perish the thought," Charles bit out through clenched teeth.

Erik's eyebrows drew together. "When was the last time you slept, Charles?" Erik said and there was some quality to his voice, a gentleness even Charles's compromised faculties could sense from him that sent Charles over the edge.

"What's this, old friend? Asking about my sleep? What next? Is this why you invited me back to Genosha? Are you going to start extolling the virtues of the plain and simple life? Have you found your peace after all?" Charles asked, not bothering to keep the mocking tone out of his voice. His nails bit into his scalp. If only Erik would yell or curse or hit then at least Charles would know where they stood.

Instead Erik tidied himself quickly and then stood up just staring. Charles couldn't say he cared for it, those sharp eyes. Perhaps his ability allowed him to see all the parts of Charles beginning to rust away.

"I don't know if I've found my peace, but I think you've lost yours," Erik said.

"Get out."

Erik looked startled and Charles felt some vicious vindication in that.

"Charles—"

"It's time isn't it? We've looked over your records, we've had our fun, now, if you don't mind, I have a very busy schedule tomorrow and you are doing nothing for my headache." Charles gave a careless patrician wave towards the window his mother would have been proud of. "Don't pretend you care, Erik, I read minds." Erik had given up the right to care decades ago.

Erik became quiet again. "Alright," he said. He moved towards Charles who stiffened, but Erik only gathered the papers spread across Charles's desk and stuffed them back into his briefcase.

"Goodnight, Charles," he said before he simply climbed out the window, same as he entered.

Charles felt powerful for all of a moment before his headache came back with a painful throb. It took all of Charles's reserve of strength to take off his shoes before he parked his chair and maneuvered himself into bed. He laid in the same spot Erik had been lying in, that still carried his smell, and told himself he was in too much pain to move.

**Author's Note:**

> So, I wrote this for the "friends with benefits" prompt for Cherik week, sorry that it’s a day late! 
> 
> Basically the idea that post-Apocalypse Charles and Erik having a regular business meeting/booty call was really funny to me and then a lot of the promo stuff for Dark Phoenix seems to suggest that Charles isn’t doing so well mentally and then skimming through my X-Men scrap document I realized I had taken down this verse from Ecclesiates with the note: “Cherik feels!” You know that feeling when your so deep in the pit of a fandom that you start having feelings about your ship during your nightly bible readings. And it all came together into… whatever this is. Thank you so much for reading!


End file.
